


An Ember in the Ashes

by PinguinoSentado



Series: Papergirl [4]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Mild Language, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-17 08:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5862178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinguinoSentado/pseuds/PinguinoSentado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Piper sets out to take on the Institute and save Nora's life</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ann

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you have any comments, questions, or requests for additional works, please message me on Tumblr. I hope you enjoy this next installment in Papergirl. Thanks for reading!

The Synth stared at the floor. Piper had been glaring at her for hours from across the room. Every now and again she would work up the courage to lift her eyes in the vain hope that some of the hate had left those cold, beautiful eyes. It never had, and she always went right back to the floor, waiting for this to end.

Every day she wished it had been different. Nora should have shot her. Then Piper would not have been standing here, absently reaching for her pistol every few moments, only sparing the life of the admitted Institute Synth to save the woman she loved.

The woman she loved. The Synth, her eyes still on the floor, now sank even deeper into the couch. This was where Nora had slept. This was where Piper had finally lost her patience and showed Nora exactly what she meant to her. This may not have been where they had fallen in love but surely it was where they had taken that first step toward saying those words.

The fake Nora would never admit it, but as she sank into the couch and prayed for this to be over, she wished she had never said a word. She could have lived out this fantasy and Piper never would have been the wiser. She could have made a life here as Nora, the luckiest girl in the world with the prettiest girl on her arm.

Piper’s voice was a whisper, cool and sharp as a razor’s edge. “I’m not calling you Nora.”

The Synth nodded. Piper’s voice, just another of those perfect things that held such sway over Nora, real or otherwise, been almost lifeless since she found out her lover was now in an Institute cell. It was just another reason the Synth seemed to have lost her own.

“Well?”Piper prompted. “Do you have a name? If not, I can think of a few.”

“Ann.” The Synth looked up to see Piper staring. Not even a raised eyebrow. Nothing. “My serial number –“

“Fine.”

Piper resumed pacing by the stairs, her hand brushing against the pistol strapped to her hip. Sometimes she went so far as to draw it, click the safety a few times, and put it back.

“Alright, Ann,” Piper walked back toward Ann as she tried to burrow straight through the floor. Her voice still had not risen above a whisper. “You’re going to tell me everything. From the beginning.”

Ann shifted back against the cushions. That was what she had agreed to. “You may not want to hear it.”

“I want Nora back,” Piper hissed. “You’re alive because you said you can get her back. Now talk.”

Ann looked up from the floor. Even with the woman threatening to kill her, she still loved her. She wondered if Nora ever felt this way, so blindly crazy about the woman in the press cap that she would do anything for her.

After all Ann had done to the poor woman, putting her life back together was the least she could do. “We grabbed her outside the city. We made some noise, sent her into an alley we had booby trapped.” Ann tried to smile but her lips refused. “We lost a lot of Synths.”

“Good,” Piper’s own lips did not so much as twitch.

“We took her back to one of our buildings and set her up in an…” Ann searched for the right word. Interrogation did not fit and seemed likely to get her shot if she said it. “A room where we could question her.”

Piper filled in the blanks anyway. “You interrogated her?”

Ann put her hands up. It was the boldest motion she had made in hours. Piper’s gun was in her hand before she could blink. “Not in the way you’re thinking. We had orders. We were supposed to grab her but under no circumstances were we to harm her.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Ann said honestly. “After we grabbed her, our orders changed. No one said why.”

Ann’s staring intensified. She would tell Piper everything she needed to know, but that did not mean she would tell her everything. Some things were best left quiet, like that the orders came down just hours before Nora was to be killed.

Piper’s eyes were doing their best to drill through Ann’s skull and find out the truth. She could feel her forehead starting to burn. “That’s how you knew,” Piper whispered. “That’s how you knew about us.”

“She was…” Ann tried again to find the words. “When we asked her about you, the things she told us… I didn’t think they were true.” Piper was glaring and weighing the gun in her hand. Ann put her hands up again. “I mean it. She told us about all the times you saved her. Even her story about the Deathclaw seemed more believable.”

Piper was still glaring. “Is there a point to this?”

“Just that she loved you. Loves you, I mean. She’s crazy about you.” Ann shrugged helplessly. “That’s it.”

“Fine,” Piper’s voice cracked. “Tell me what happened next.”

Ann started absently rubbing her hands together. “I studied her answers. After about a week, I got the order to move in.” She paused. At least Piper would like this part of the story. “Only she got loose. Somehow she picked her way out of her cell, beat two Gen Ones with her bare hands, grabbed her gear, and shot her way out.”

Piper smiled then. It was not a pleasant one. “You should have believed the stories.”

She could hardly argue. “I saw her on the monitors,” Ann shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like it. A Deathclaw couldn’t have done that much damage.”

That unpleasant smile on Piper’s face had grown into a wolfish grin. “You have no idea.”

Ann looked down at her hands and forced them to stop moving. “I was ordered to follow her out, get to Diamond City first, and let Security handle the rest. They told me I would have cover, that they would slow Nora down and make sure I got there first.”

“But she was better.”

“She was better,” Ann admitted. “By the time I got to the gates, Security was ready to shoot. They arrested me on the spot.” Another pause. They both knew how this story ended but that only made reliving it that much harder. “So I started shouting about a Synth being in the city. I told them to find you, that the Institute was after you and you were in danger. When one of the said they had just seen us together in the street, I saw my chance. I grabbed one of the guards, used him as a shield to get my pistol, and made a break for it.”

“And no one stopped you?”

Ann sighed. “They thought I was Nora. I guess no one wanted to kill the woman that had saved them all from Super Mutants.”

She had tried to talk them down while she was taking a hostage, something that felt as ridiculous as it sounded, and it surely would have failed had she been wearing any face but Nora’s. The woman was loved here, whether she knew it or not. The guards had all tried to help her. Even after she had put a gun to his ribs, the man had just kept telling her it would be alright.

A fitting start.

“So you shot her,” Piper finished, the slightest quaver in her voice threatening to knock Ann to the floor.

Again, Ann could only nod. She was too much of a coward to speak. Piper spoke for her. “But she’s still alive. How?”

“I don’t know all the details,” Ann admitted again. When Piper glared, she could only shrug. “They kept me in the dark as much as they could. They do that to all of us. No names of other agents in the area, no way to get home without their permission. Just a target.” Seeing Piper was far from satisfied, Ann kept on. “They loaded my gun with some special rounds before I left. They would stop her heart long enough for her to look dead. Then our people would move in and take her away.”

Piper put a hand to her mouth and looked away. Ann knew what she was thinking. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said pathetically.

The gun waved her way but without any heart. “I told them to cut her open,” Piper whispered so softly Ann almost missed it. Ann wanted nothing more than to hold her. Piper recovered her balance in a heartbeat. “Just tell the story. I don’t want your pity. Not when you did this to us.”

Ann looked back at the floor. “I was told to shoot her in the chest but to miss her heart. So I did,” she shook her head. “Then you asked your questions.”

“I know,” Piper hissed. “Where did you go after that? Someone took you out of the jail.”

“That’s when things went wrong. Whoever tipped the Compound off to me also tipped off the Railroad. Probably the Brotherhood, too.”

“And you don’t think they were Institute?” Piper asked.

“No. The plan was… not for me to get taken.”

Piper rounded slowly. “The plan was what, exactly?”

Ann wilted under her stare. “The plan was for me to stay with you. I was supposed to convince you to abandon the paper. Then settle in and wait.”

“For what?”

“For orders. For me to kill you.”

Piper was still trying to bore through her skull. The last part of the conversation had played out the night before, Ann pinned to the ground as Piper held a gun to her head. They both knew the order had come. They both knew that Ann, in that moment, could not take the life of Piper Wright. She had fallen for her, just as Nora had.

And because of that, Ann would not torture Piper by saying it again. The next time she heard someone say ‘I love you,’ it should come from the real Nora.

Piper moved across the room, holstering her pistol as she walked. Surely that was a small victory. “Then there’s really only one question left,” Piper knelt in front of Ann. “Where is Nora?”

Ann forced herself to look Piper in the eyes for at least a moment before fleeing in misery. “I don’t know.”

She half-expected Piper to punch her in the jaw. “You don’t know,” she repeated.

“I can find out,” Ann promised, her eyes finding Piper’s again. “I just need some time.”

Piper’s eyes were colder than her voice. When Ann looked away again, she found Piper’s fists clenched, her knuckles white and shaking. “You expect me to just let you wander around the Wasteland?”

Ann shook her head. “I want you to come with me.”

Those angry eyes went wider. “Do you, now?”

“There will be others coming after you,” Ann could hear the desperation in her own voice. “Other agents. Coursers, even. I don’t want you out of my sight.”

“Because you’ve been such a fucking hero so far, haven’t you?”

“I mean it, I –“ Ann stopped herself before she finished. Piper twitched, one of her arms coiling to knock the Synth to the floor in rage. “Look, I know you hate me right now.”

“You really don’t.”

“But I want to make this right. Please.”

Ann managed to stand her ground as Piper used up the last of her self control. With the slow, methodic grace of a woman at the edge of her rope, Piper got to her feet.

“I don’t want you around Nat,” Piper whispered. “She’ll stay where she is. We’ll both go. It’s easier.”

With a quiet sigh of relief, Ann managed to relax. At least she could keep Piper safe from people worse than her. When Piper walked back toward the stairs, Ann quietly began looking for her things.

“You’ll stay here,” Piper said as she climbed.

Ann looked up in shock. “What?”

“People will start asking questions if they see you on the street. You’ll stay here.”

Ann remained rooted in the middle of the room, unsure of where to go. Piper stopped when she got to the top step, turning her head slightly. Only then could Ann see the red in her eyes.

“Don’t sleep on the couch,” Piper’s voice broke. “Find someplace else.”


	2. How the Other Half Lives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora tries to survive while captured by the Institute

Nora had always suspected she would end up in a place like this. Sheer white walls, squeaky floor, bright fluorescent lights, armed guards outside the shatterproof glass, and a camera that was not even trying to hide all did their best to tell the room’s lonely occupant ‘you’ve lost your mind.’

In all likelihood, she had. A few months ago, she would have thought this an enormous relief and prayed night and day for someone to walk through the door and tell her that her husband had come to see her. She would have sobbed like a child, asked about Shaun, begged to be let out to see the light of day.

Now, she just felt like hurting someone.

Piper was out there, alone. With _it_. Nora still could not believe what she had seen. Another her. A duplicate. Her very own twin. Of all the things she had expected the Institute to do, that was near the bottom of the list. How had they done it? She had not even recognized herself when confronted on the street and only put it together when she saw the outfit. Whatever they had dosed her with must have been strong because, Synth or not, that thing never should have gotten the drop on her.

The worst was that if anything happened to Piper, it would be on Nora’s head. She had been careless. She was better than this. She had seen their trap coming a mile away and still she had fallen into it. The memory of it all set her blood boiling.

Too restless to sit, Nora climbed off the bed and again toured her meager accommodations. One chair with no table, one bed with sheet and lumpy pillow, and absolutely nothing else. She would have complained about the lack of privacy but, seeing as she only had the one set of clothes, it seemed pointless.

Someone in a white lab coat passed her window. Far worse than the invasion of Nora’s privacy had been the invasion of her mind. She remembered very little of the experience, though whether that was a side effect of the drugs or her own mind blocking it out was still up for debate. She had told them everything, of that she was certain. Her time before the Vault. Nate. Shaun. Piper. All of it.

The soft hiss of the door sliding open brought her out of the old nightmare and into her current one. A man in a pristine lab coat strolled in, hands in his pockets. “Our guest is awake. Good.”

Nora stood at attention by the bedside. Already she was eyeing the door, wondering if she could take him hostage or steal his keycard. She had not seen him badge in and there appeared to be no tag marking his identity. He also appeared unarmed.

“Are you going to introduce yourself?” she asked icily.

“You may call me Doctor Machson, though I don’t see what use my name is to someone in your position,” he said dismissively. Nora shivered. She had seen more than her share of psychopaths and already she could tell this man was the worst yet.

“What do you want from me?”

Those eyes, the color and warmth of frozen earth, fixed on her. “I want to know who you are.”

Nora stood her ground. “I seem to recall telling you everything about me.”

“You answered all our questions,” the doctor began to pace, sizing her up in a way that made her profoundly uncomfortable. “But that just means we failed to ask the right ones.”

Machson continued to pace, looking Nora up and down like a piece of meat. Nora crossed her arms over her chest. “You don’t want me alive.”

“No.”

At least they were not wasting words. “Then why am I here?”

“Because,” Machson heaved a great, angry sigh. “You have the attention of someone very important. I’ve been told not to lay a finger on you, to show you the greatest care in keeping you safe but no one will tell me why.”

The man now grew agitated. “Who are you? Do you know someone? Have friends in high places?”

Nora failed to stifle a laugh, something that made her captor even angrier. “Sorry. Two hundred years as a popsicle doesn’t get you many friends.”

“So I see,” Machson peered closer. “But someone knows you. If I had it my way, once we had picked that brain of yours clean, you would be buried in a shallow grave and your girlfriend would be wiling away the hours with your replacement.”

Now Nora began to bristle. “You made a mistake going after her. There’s no one in the world that hates your people more than she does.”

“Which should tell you exactly how I feel about her. Though I had initially planned on simply killing her in her home, I find myself more and more enchanted with the prospect of taking my time, of making her watch as, bit by bit, everything she loves is taken away.”

She felt her fists clench. “I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

Machson laughed. “If you ever want to see that pretty face again, you’ll be on your best behavior.”

“And why the hell would I do you any favors?”

“Because,” he grinned. “I own you. One word from me and Nora will suddenly snap, strangling poor Piper Wright in her sleep. Or maybe, if you ask nicely, I’ll make it quick.”

Nora was shaking with rage. “You –“

“What? I what?” Machson walked right up to her face. “If anything happens to me, Piper dies. I get in a bad mood over breakfast, Piper dies. I. Own. You.”

Everything in her screamed to kill the little man. She could do it in a heartbeat, be out the door before his body hit the ground. He was bluffing. He had to be.

“You don’t believe me? Fine. Sit.”

Nora glared. Machson raised one eyebrow. “Sit,” he repeated. “Or I kill her.”

Nora sat.

“Good. Now stand.”

Nora stood, shaking from abject hate. She felt a scream clawing its way from her throat as he made her sit down again.

“Very good,” the monster turned away from her. “Maybe next time I’ll teach you to roll over.”

Nora’s breath was coming in ragged gasps between clenched teeth. She was going to kill him. With her bare hands, she was going to murder him for this.

“I’ll let you think about what just happened, about what else I can make you do. I think you’d do anything to keep Piper safe. And her little sister. With Piper gone, little Natalie has no one. Only Nora. Do you think she would trust you? I do. I think she would, right up until you put your hands around her throat, the same way you killed her big sister,” Machson opened the door. He paused halfway into the hall. “In fact, I’m going to leave the door open. As long as I have Piper, you can’t touch me.”

His voice echoed as he walked down the hall. “Think hard, Nora. I am not a patient man.”

Nora stared at the door, biting her lip hard enough to taste blood. He was right. He had Piper. And she would do anything to keep her safe. It did not matter if the door was open. It did not matter what he asked her to do.

Holding her ribs and clenching her teeth to keep from screaming, Nora lay down on the bed and rolled to face the wall. She had to find a way out. There was always a way out. Machson wanted something. If she could just figure out what it was, she could find a way to use it, to get him to leave Piper alone. She would stay here for the rest of her life if that was what it took.

Nora squeezed her eyes shut. _Piper, whatever you’re doing, please be safe. Please._


	3. Friendly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper follows Ann to an Institute outpost in the hopes of gathering information on Nora but finds working alongside the Synth to be increasingly difficult

Ann never thought she would be happy to see the dust-caked nothingness that was the Commonwealth, but here she was, thankful to be anywhere outside Publick Occurrences. Piper had not kept her under house arrest for long. After one day of maddening silence and a night sleeping on the floor, Piper had given her a sharp kick to the ribs and told her to get ready.

She had not even asked where they were going, just followed Ann down whatever side street she picked. It made Ann anxious. Except for her intense hatred of Ann, Piper was a shadow of a woman. Ann kept looking over her shoulder to make sure the woman was still there, trailing a few dozen yards back, her face utterly blank.

The nights outside the city were even worse. Ann would pick a building to set up camp and Piper would settle down in the furthest corner she could find. Ann would watch the street for movement. Piper would watch Ann. Neither of them ever got much sleep.

“This is it?” Piper’s dead voice came from over Ann’s shoulder.

Ann peeped through a gaping hole in the wall. “Yeah, I think so.”

She wished she could be more confident about it but the Institute was very thorough in the policing of Synth memories. Getting the bits of half-remembered pictures that made up the map to this place had been immeasurably difficult.

Piper began taking a look around. “What is this place?”

Ann had led them into a large courtyard near the western edge of the city. The surrounding buildings were regularly patrolled by synths, or at least she seemed to remember that they were, so Ann was eager to get inside.

“It’s an Institute outpost. It’s not where they are keeping Nora, but it should have some information about the surrounding facilities. My hope is that we can find a terminal with local database access, maybe an active network, whatever we can find.”

Piper gave her an odd look. “I meant before the war,” she said. It was then that she realized who she was talking to and the hate returned. “But you wouldn’t know, would you?”

Ann slouched. It seemed both of them missed the old days. “You’re right, I don’t know. College, maybe?”

No response. Piper sidled through the hole ahead of her. “Come on. We’re wasting time.”

Ann headed her off. “Alright but let me go first. We need to move fast. Once they figure out we’re here and that we’re not going away, they’re going to do everything they can to wipe their computers.”

Piper let her pass. “By all means.”

It was probably not a hard decision for her. Ann settled back against the wall and took stock one last time. She really had no idea what they were getting in to. On the surface, the complex stretched through half a dozen buildings and enclosed a lovely little courtyard. One of them had decayed so completely that the only thing left was a heap of gray masonry, like a pile of dirty snow. Piper and Ann had simply walked over it to get inside the grounds.

Below them could be any number of synths. Above and around them were probably sentries, cameras, and turrets that Ann had failed to spot. She wished Piper had not insisted on coming with her. Ann wanted to do right by Piper. Getting her killed seemed like a lousy way to do that.

“First thing, we have to find the basement,” Ann said as she began creeping through the shadows.

“Something you remembered?” Piper asked as she followed.

“No,” Ann could not resist a little smile. “The Institute just loves holes in the ground. We’re like Mole Rats.”

Piper was quiet but Ann, optimist that she was, let herself believe the woman had cracked a smile. That, more than anything else, she missed about the old days. She would have traded all the nights with Piper, all the mornings where she woke Ann up so sweetly, for just one of her smiles, just one to let her know that she was something more than the woman who had destroyed her life.

Wishful thinking, Ann thought as she found the basement stairs, did not become her.

 

The clacking of Ann’s fingers on the keyboard had been their only sound for almost an hour. Even the unholy wailing of the facility alarm would have been a welcome change. Maybe she should turn it back on.

Piper did not seem to care. Lost in her own thoughts, she wandered from door to door, checking the hallways for visitors. She had been poking through stacks of papers earlier but quickly lost interest when she realized they did not have the answers she wanted. Between that and rifling through the pockets of dead Synths, she had probably been idle long enough to start wondering if Ann would ever come through for her.

“Well,” Ann said, breaking the oppressive silence for its own sake. “I don’t think they’ve moved her to the Institute’s main facility yet.”

Piper looked up. “Yet?”

Ann frowned. “Just a guess, but if Nora has the attention of someone higher up, someone who can redirect an entire facility, I’m guessing they’ll want to talk to her in person.”

“So what’s keeping them from moving her?” Piper walked over toward the terminal Ann was pecking away at.

“I don’t know. Power struggle?” When Piper raised an eyebrow, Ann could only shrug. “Isn’t that what these things are always about? If Nora is so important to someone in the Institute, whoever is holding her might be asking for more than just a pat on the back for turning her over.”

Ann continued browsing through files as Piper lost herself in thought, hopping onto the side of a table and watching her legs dangle beneath her. She looked so small, sitting like that. Ann remembered her briefing on the notorious Piper Wright. On paper, she wanted all Synths hung up by their thumbs and used for target practice. Believing that made invading her life so much simpler.

In person, she was something else, something Ann could stare at for hours and never be any closer to understanding. She still wondered how someone like Piper had grown up in this miserable place. She deserved better. Better than Ann, better than the Institute, and probably better than Nora.

Piper had noticed her staring. Without a word, Ann went back to browsing through files and wondering why she had not just kept her mouth shut.

“Alright,” Ann said as she opened another file. “This might be what we’re looking for.”

Piper hopped off the table and walked over to her. “You found her?”

“Maybe,” Ann said. “This looks familiar. I can’t put my finger on it but I think this was my facility. And see this? The same day we brought Nora in, they start requesting Institute support. A lot of it. And this is the day Nora escaped. They reported almost sixty percent of their security staff killed or wounded in under an hour.”

Piper folded her arms and gloated. “Deathclaw attack?”

Ann sniffed. “A herd of them, maybe.”

“So that’s it? We go in and get Nora?”

“It won’t be easy,” Ann browsed again. “They’ve been asking other installations for help for the last few weeks. Everything from Gen Ones to Coursers. Even asked for a few Sentry Bots. This is going to be very hard fight.”

Piper glared at her. “I don’t care what they have, I’m going in there. I’m getting Nora back.”

“I know,” Ann said, her voice calm. “And I’m going with you, but Piper –“

A very dangerous light had begun to shine from Piper’s eyes. “What, Ann? Should I be careful? Are you worried something might happen to me?”

“Yes, I am,” Ann turned toward Piper. “I know you want her back, but you need to stop and use your head.”

“You’re damn right I want her back! I’m not letting the Institute have her!”

“And you’re planning on fighting the whole Wasteland to get to her, is that it?” Ann snapped. “You think she’d want you to –“

Piper shoved Ann backward, knocking her to the floor and sending her chair skittering away. “Don’t you dare talk to me about her!”

Ann leapt to her feet, standing her ground in front of the shorter woman. “I’m not going to let you kill yourself over her!”

“Of course you’re not! You’d just love it if I went home, forgot about Nora, and settled for the cheap knock-off in the living room! Tell me I’m wrong!” Piper’s tirade more than stung and Ann did not answer quickly enough to stop it. “You don’t give a damn if I find her!”

“I give a damn about you! If that means finding Nora, I’ll walk straight into the Institute for you but I won’t do it on a whim! What would Nora say if she were here? Would she want you charging off like this?”

Piper clenched her fists and looked like she was about to throw a punch when she froze. Her shoulders went limp, her eyes glassy. Ann started to panic. “Piper?”

Before Ann could move, Piper had one hand up between them warding her away. It was not an angry gesture, but a passive one. Her other hand went to her forehead, covering her face but failing to hide a wistful smile.

“You’re right,” Piper whispered. “She wouldn’t.” Her hand fell away, and for the first time since that horrible night, Ann saw life in her eyes. “She would have told me to stop being such an idiot.”

Ann watched as the woman she had so badly hurt began coming back to life. She looked up, not at Ann, but at Nora. It only lasted a moment, and when it was gone, Ann felt utterly lifeless.

“Do you know where it is?” Piper’s question startled Ann. “Where Nora is being held?”

“Yeah,” Ann was more than happy to focus on something besides Piper. “Looks like… a ways north of here. Somewhere outside Concord.”

“Can you find it?”

Ann shrugged. “I’ll do what I can. Something tells me we won’t know it on sight.”

As Ann resumed her work on the computer, Piper wandered over to another workstation. Ann had given her the credentials to get in so Piper was soon browsing about on her own. The help was welcome. The Institute was very good at covering their tracks and distrusted its own people as much as the outside world. What Ann was looking for, the location of another facility, would be hidden at the highest level of secrecy. She had initially hoped to find it in the redeployment orders for this facility’s security staff but, so far, had come up with nothing but a list of serial numbers.

“What’s a Courser?”

Ann did not look up from her work. “A really nasty Synth. They’re who the Institute sends in when something absolutely cannot go wrong.”

Piper had stopped typing. “What do you mean?”

“They’re killers,” Ann summarized. “Assassins is probably better. They have the best guns, get the best equipment, and are very dedicated to the Institute. They can turn themselves invisible, too. They’re a fun bunch.”

“Do you think you can kill one?”

Ann chuckled. “Well, there will probably be a few guarding Nora, so I certainly hope so. Why?”

Piper pointed to her monitor. “Because one just walked in the front door.”


	4. The Better Part of Valor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper and Ann battle a Courser

Piper tore down the hallway, arms over her head to protect herself from the constant whizzing of rock and mortar. Her legs were a mess from a thousand tiny scratches and her hands were feeling no better. Somewhere behind her, Ann was urging her on while firing over her shoulder.

Behind them both was the Courser. “I thought you said you could kill it!” Piper shouted over the constant gunfire. From the sound of it, the thing had come packing a minigun and barrels of ammunition.

“Working on it!” Ann called back over a spatter of rifle fire.

Piper took the next corner for no other reason than to get out of the line of fire. She had no idea where they were or which way was up but she was not about to stop and ask. “Well work faster. I’m fresh out of ideas.” She checked her sidearm as she ran, shaking the dust from her clothes and trying to ignore the gnawing pain in her limbs. “Do bullets even work on that thing?”

The sound of metal hitting the floor marked Ann reloading her rifle as she ran. “If I could get half a second of clear sight lines, I could give you an answer. Never tried killing one before.”

“But we can kill it?”

“Sure,” Ann groaned her way around the next corner with Piper. “It’d just be a hell of a lot easier if I’d brought my spare Fat Man.”

More intersections passed, more rooms full of computer terminals and machinery that Piper could not make sense of. What she did see was from another world. Everything was pure white, untouched by dirt or grime. To Piper, nothing in the world could make a stronger case of good against evil. These people hid from the truth down here, making their synths and claiming to be making people better.

There were better people just above their heads. Starving. Freezing. Being torn apart by mutants.

Ann caught her arm at the next corner. “Wait.”

Piper did, shaking herself free of the woman’s touch. She cocked an ear. The Courser was so lethal its footfalls should have been thunderclaps. But there was nothing, something that made it even more terrifying.

“You think it’s following us?” Ann asked.

Piper looked down the hall. “It has to know where we are.”

More silence. Ann looked to her. “We can’t fight it in here. We need to get outside.”

It knew that just as surely as they did. Ann started to run before Piper caught her arm. “That’s where it will be going.”

“So what, we just stay here? If it gets the drop on us, we’re dead.”

Piper glared at her. “Then we get the drop on it.”

“Got a mini nuke under that hat?” Ann quipped.

The glare on Piper’s face intensified. “Move.”

By some stroke of divine luck, Piper actually recognized where they were. They were close to the surface. The Courser probably knew that, too, herding them over here so they would flee blindly into whatever trap it had set. It would have worked, had Ann not slowed Piper down long enough to think it through.

After a few twists and turns, they came to one of the facility’s escape tunnels. Piper, for no other reason than keeping busy, had begun committing them to memory while Ann had been perusing the Institute’s files. She had been lucky. Sunlight beckoned the two far down at the end of the concrete tunnel. This had probably been a drainage ditch, before. Piper resisted the urge to smile. Ann had called the Institute Mole Rats. Perhaps Mirelurks was a more fitting analogy.

Piper peered down the hallway. Ann did the same. “You think it’s out there?”

“Yeah,” Piper could not help but look over her shoulder. “Either that or it’s still chasing us and we’re just giving it time.”

Ann laughed mirthlessly. “Well, in that case, we should get going,” she pointed at the door. “It will probably wait until we trip that bomb, then come in shooting.”

The tripwire Piper had missed was nearly invisible from here. Piper again looked over her shoulder. Ann had said Coursers could turn invisible at will. If that was true, they would only know it was there when it was too late. Springing the trap seemed like the best idea. At least this way they would know what was killing them.

“Alright,” Piper said. “I’ll go first. I’ll jump the tripwire and run for those trees. While it’s shooting at me, you come out and take the shot.”

Ann grabbed her arm. “Like hell I’m letting you run out there. If anyone’s running into a trap like this, it’s going to be me.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Piper hissed, trying to shake off the Synth’s iron grip and failing miserably. “It’s going to figure out where we are pretty soon and then it won’t matter who it shoots first.”

Ann sighed. “Fine.”

She shoved Piper to the ground and bolted for the door. Piper wanted to scream. She rolled into a crouch, took aim, and fired one shot down the hall.

The doorway exploded. Bits of concrete went everywhere as both sides of the wall buckled inward. Ann kept running, unhurt by the blast. Gunfire from outside the building came in a short burst, then stopped abruptly when the Courser realized no one was actually in the trap. Just as the firing stopped, Ann bolted through the door, now shrouded in thick, white smoke from the walls that had now been turned to powder.

Ann’s rifle chattered. The Courser’s barked back loud enough to nearly drown out the smaller weapon. Piper leapt to her feet and sprinted down the hall, one arm over her mouth to keep the dust out. She reached the entrance and hesitated, dropping into a crouch and moving along the edge of the building.

No fire scorched her as she moved. Ann was keeping the Courser busy. Piper cleared the smoke just in time to see Ann pelting for the trees, rifle bobbing at her side. Out of ammo? Geysers of dirt kicked up all around her. Trees split in two as the Courser fired round after round at the fleeing woman.

Ann screamed. Piper saw a cloud of dust explode from her hip as she went spinning to the ground.

The Courser did not stop firing. Piper leapt around the tree as Ann writhed on the ground, rolling over a small rise to try and hide from the gunfire. The Courser broke cover, walking as it fired from the hip.

Piper fired once.

She saw the bullet impact on the Courser’s head. It jerked sideways, its gun slewing along the ground, still spraying bullets. Piper fired again. And again and again. She kept firing until the pistol clicked empty and the Courser, finally realizing it was dead, fell to the ground.

Piper ran toward the hill. Ann had to be alright. Ann, the woman that had taken Piper’s life away and had caused her so much pain and doubt, the woman that had lied her way into Piper’s bed and done things with her that now twisted Piper’s gut into knots. She had to be alive.

Ann’s rifle lay where it had fallen. The grass around it was bloody. There should not have been this much blood. Piper’s heart began to rise into her throat.

She found Ann lying behind a fallen tree, hands over her open wound. She was breathing hard, gasping in panic and agony as she held her side. Piper hurried over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Ann yelped in terror as she did. She was going into shock.

“My leg,” Ann said. “I can’t feel it. I can’t feel my leg.”

She said it over and over as Piper tried to calm her. “I know,” Piper said. “It’s going to be alright. I’m here. I’m going to help you.”

Ann shook her head. “I’m sorry. I should have run faster. I’m sorry, Piper.”

Piper pulled a bandage from Ann’s backpack. “You did great, Ann. You’re going to be fine.”

She started wrapping the bandage around Ann’s hip, hoping the bullet had not struck anything important. It looked bad. Could people bleed out from a hip wound? Piper knew there was an artery in the leg. Did Synth’s have arteries like humans did? Even if they did, would they be in the same places?

Ann was babbling. She kept apologizing for everything, telling Piper to run while she could. Piper finished tying the bandage and put one hand on Ann’s shoulder. “Ann. Ann, look at me.”

The Synth’s eyes were wild, darting from Piper to her hip and back in a mad blur. She was so scared. Piper felt her heart going out to her. _It’s just because she looks like Nora. You’re seeing Nora like this, not her._

“Ann,” Piper felt her hand gently running up the side of Ann's neck. She found herself pushing the woman’s hair back over her ear. “Ann, listen to me. Nora’s not here.” Ann looked up at her, her eyes finally focusing on Piper’s. “I can’t do this on my own. Nora’s gone. That means I need you to be here with me, the way you were before. Can you do that?”

Ann nodded frantically, shaking her head to clear it and sniffing away her tears of pain and panic. She looked down at her leg. “I don’t think I can walk.”

Piper cinched the bandage tight, drawing a sharp gasp from Ann. “I’m not asking you to.”

With one of Ann’s arms around her neck, Piper hoisted her up, allowing her to rest on the shorter woman’s shoulder. Ann groaned as she tested her leg. “Thank you,” she managed.

Piper sighed. “Let’s just get you home.”


	5. All Too Familiar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Ann recovers from her wounds, Piper has a long-overdue talk with the woman who took Nora away

Ann lay motionless on the couch as Piper examined her wound. A few Stimpacks had stopped her from bleeding out on the road and now she was just trying to stay off it as much as possible. It would have been much easier to do if sitting down had not felt like such a personal betrayal of Piper.

“It doesn’t look too bad anymore,” Piper mused as she removed the bandage. She was being gentle, something that put Ann terrifyingly off-balance. Even as Piper tended to her, Ann kept looking around for a pile of salt waiting to be rubbed in her open wound. Piper hated her, deserved to hate her. She should not have cared if Ann lived or died.

“I think I’m okay,” Ann said, trying to sit up. Piper put a hand on her shoulder and eased her back down.

“You’re okay when I say you’re okay,” her doctor said. Again, she was gentle. “Now lie still. I don’t want you opening this up again. I’m all out of Stimpacks and clean bandages. Next wound you get I’m wrapping in last week’s paper.”

Ann tried to smile. “You still have them around?”

“Turns out selling joy is much harder than selling fear. People don’t want to think we’ve beaten the Institute. And we haven’t, I know that, but it would be nice to celebrate a victory once in a while.”

Ann was not sure how to respond to that. She was living proof that the Institute had won that round. Piper re-tied the bandage and looked Ann in the eyes. “I know what you’re thinking. And I’ve been thinking about it, too, so you’re going to have to hear me out.”

Piper sat back beside the couch and cocked her head just slightly, as though she were seeing Ann for the first time. “I know it wasn’t you.”

“What do you mean?”

A very tired smile spread over Piper’s face. “You were told to come here to stop the big bad journalist tearing the Commonwealth apart, weren’t you?” When Ann said nothing, Piper continued. “I get it. When we were walking back here, I got to thinking. I remembered that fight with the Railroad, when you were going up against that kid in the Power Armor. You could have killed him. No one would have blamed you - he was coming after you with a minigun – but you didn’t. You let him go.”

Ann shifted. “He wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“Just trying to kill us?” Piper finished, a bit of amusement creeping into her tone. “He was trying to save the world. Just like you were.” She stood, pushing herself up and walked toward the trash bin, Ann’s soiled bandages in one hand. The lid clanged shut and Piper leaned against it. “I’m sorry.”

Now Ann sat up. “What –“

Piper pointed back at the couch before Ann could finish. “I’m serious,” she said, stern but not angry. Ann lay back down. “I owe you an apology. I just… I see you and all I can think about is her. I see everything I did with you. I can’t stop thinking about it. How I betrayed her.” Piper’s eyes turned cloudy as she stared through the floor. “I miss her, Ann. And seeing you just reminds me that she could be hurt. It reminds me of everything I love about her and how I may never have any of that again.”

After being reminded of how deeply her betrayal truly ran, the Synth had gone back to staring at her wound. “We’ll get her back,” she promised quietly.

Piper smiled wanly. “See? Trying to save the world.”

“I learned from the best.”

Piper gave her a long look. “You did, didn’t you?” She moved slowly to the edge of the couch, sitting down on the lip of the cushion and putting one hand on Ann’s arm. “I’m sorry, Ann. I mean it. You could have killed me. You had your orders and you had no reason to let me live. But you did. You’re even helping me find Nora, trying to make things right again,” Piper looked at the floor. “And I haven’t exactly thanked you for that.”

Ann shook her head. “You don’t owe me anything, Piper.”

“I do,” Piper’s fingers moved down to Ann’s hip and traced their way along the wound in her side. “I still hate you for taking Nora away. I hate that I have to see you every day, that I look at your face – her face – and don’t know what to feel anymore. Even if we get her back, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look at her the same way,” Piper’s hand came to rest on Ann’s thigh. “But I love you for helping me get her back. For giving me the chance to see her again. I know you weren’t the one who wanted her taken. This was forced on you as much as it was on me.”

“So,” Piper leaned down to Ann and, with slow and timid breaths, whispered “I just wanted to say thank you. For giving me that chance.”

Ann closed her eyes as Piper kissed her on the cheek. Everything in her wanted to pull her down and kiss her back. But she did not. She could not do that to her. That comfort was for Nora alone. Ann had been given a few short, amazing weeks with Piper. She should have been thankful. Instead, all she could think about was how much she wanted just one more night with her. Just one more kiss, one more moment of holding her as she drifted off to sleep. She would have given anything in the world just to kiss her one last time.

Nora had fought through hell for Piper. She had gone from being despised by the woman to being loved by her. Nora had done that. Not Ann. This was not her place. Not her life.

“Get some rest,” Piper said, pulling away to stand up from the couch. She took everything with her. Even the smell of her was gone. Ann had never realized how much she had come to love those little things.

Piper turned to the stairs. Ann tried to sit up again but found Piper motioning her to lie down. “Don’t make me tie you down,” she said quietly. “Just get some sleep. Once your leg is better, we’ll start for Concord.”

Ann lay back against the couch. “Piper?” Piper turned around, a faint smile on her lips. “I am sorry. For everything.”

Piper’s smile widened just a little. “I know.”

She finished climbing the stairs without a word. The sound of her settling into bed drifted through the floorboards soon after and, a moment later, her light winked out. Ann’s eyes refused to leave the stairs. She wondered how many times Nora had done this. Probably just the once. Ann could not imagine doing this for longer than one night. A woman would go mad.

She tried to settle in on the cushions and sleep but could not get comfortable. It was not the throbbing in her leg or the fear of what might happen when they went after Nora. It was not even the distracting sounds of Piper drifting off to sleep. It was Nora. Ann could feel her in the room, staring at her, wanting to strangle her. She knew this Synth was in her place and Ann could feel the woman’s hatred for her as surely as if she had been standing over her with a knife.

Her hand went to the bandage at her side. The worst of the pain had gone. After flexing her leg a few times, suppressing a groan of pain each time she moved, she settled back. They would leave tomorrow. Healed or not, she could not leave Nora to be tortured by the Institute any longer. She had been given enough caps to buy a few more Stimpacks on the road. If worse came to worse, she would use them.

But, one way or another, this had to end. Soon.


	6. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After days of being interrogated by Machson, Nora is subjected to her worst torture yet

Nora lay on her cot and stared at the wall. She had gotten used to Machson’s irregular visits. No doubt he sat at that camera feed, waiting for her to fall asleep before coming in here with a barrage of questions. Perhaps next time he would come in banging pots and pans. It would certainly fit his childish character.

It came as no surprise to Nora when the door hissed open after just a few minutes of sleep and Machson’s voice giddily asked. “Did I wake you?”

“I’m used to someone far prettier asking me that,” Nora groaned. “So you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit grouchy.”

“She still asks,” Machson gloated. “And you still answer. For all she knows, the woman lying beside her is you. You are forgotten down here. There is no point in avoiding these questions. Give me answers I like and maybe I’ll even throw in your very own Piper Synth. Can’t have you running back to join the real thing.”

“Tempting,” Nora’s tone dripped with sarcasm. “But I wouldn’t want to put you through the trouble. She’s a tough person to make a copy of. Not like me, all point and shoot and caveman grumble.”

Machson scoffed. “That’s what you’re hung up on? The details?”

“It’s just economy of effort,” Nora said matter-of-factly. “You’d never get her right so I’m saying you shouldn’t try. You could spend your whole life working on just that quirky smile of hers and you’d never get close.”

“Maybe not, but we managed to replace you after only a few weeks. What does that say about how well your dear Piper knows you?”

It was not the first time Nora wondered at the exact sound such a hollow head would make when struck with the room’s only chair. To her great annoyance, she also knew it would not be the last time either. “You have more questions for me?”

“I do,” Machson gestured toward the door. Nora watched a pair of human-looking Synths walk into her little prison. Neither one appeared armed. “But first, we’re going on a little field trip.”

One of the Synths grabbed her below the shoulder and hoisted her to her feet. Nora, always thinking of Piper, did not break his wrist for doing so. Machson was already walking out the door when the second Synth began pushing her to follow. “Do I get to know where?” she asked as she wrestled her arm free.

“You’ll see,” Machson had a disturbing, sing-song voice when he was happy. Hearing it was never a good sign.

Nora trailed him down the first corridor in silence. She had been out only twice since her capture and neither experience had done much for her sour mood. As much as she hated the bleak walls of her cell, at least they did not actively torment her. That she preferred her own, quiet madness to that of her tormentor probably said something about her.

The first corridor was short. Her cell was adjoined by a few others, none of which were occupied. All had the same, bare furnishings. She was amused to find none of the others had sheets on the mattress like hers. It was the little things.

“Have you thought any more about what I said?” Machson asked, his voice cheerful and grating in pitch.

Nora could not help herself. “Well, the TV I asked for still hasn’t come, so I’ve had little else to do.”

“For someone who should be dead, you’re very glib in your answers,” the doctor snapped.

“Believe me, it’s a deep, personal flaw of mine that I work on every day.”

The man whirled on her. “I don’t think you fully understand the gravity of your situation.”

“Oh, I understand it very well. You have Piper. I have nothing. If I could tell you what you wanted to know, believe me, I would.”

Machson stared at her, peering into her eyes to see if she was telling the truth. “Well,” he said, turning away with his cheerful voice. “No matter. Whatever you are hiding, it will soon be brought to light.”

Nora followed, her Synth escorts stomping just a pace behind her. The man’s tone made her hair stand on end. He had something especially nasty planned for her today.

The hallways in the Institute were a disturbing kind of white. Nora had forgotten things could shine like this. She half-expected to find a herd of Mr. Handys running around constantly buffing the floor. It would not have taken away from the bizarre atmosphere. In fact, seeing something from the past might have made it more normal.

“Is that what you’re trying to do around here?” Nora asked as they turned a corner. “Recreate the past, I mean?”

Machson laughed. “What, rebuild the world just as it was before the Great War and hope another one doesn’t break out?” He looked over his shoulder and Nora gave him the benefit of a shrug. “No, though I’m not surprised that you’re thinking that way. You’re small-minded, just like everyone else up there.”

Nora rolled her eyes. “Except the one person you’re trying to bump off.”

“Why would we recreate that same, flawed system? All the arms races and hatred and endless cycles of fear?” Machson ranted. Nora wondered if he had any idea at all what things were like before the war. “No, what we are doing is trying to make things better.”

The words came up on their own. “By what, kidnapping people and killing them?” She knew she was talking to a brick wall but she could not help herself. Today was a day for discovering personality flaws.

Machson stopped outside a doorway and turned to glare at her. “I don’t owe you an explanation. In a few hundred years, no one will remember you, but everyone will know how the Institute brought order out of so much chaos.”

Nora smiled sweetly. “I’m sure you’re right.”

For a moment, she really thought he was going to hit her. Instead, he just muttered. “I’m going to enjoy this.” Then pointed her into the room.

The door slid open with the same, quiet hiss as all the others in the facility. Nora walked through, now walking beside the mad doctor down the corridor. Her gut started to twist. This looked familiar. Something was wrong here.

Dread began to creep into her bones but she could not figure out why, something that gave rise to a churning anxiety in her gut. She looked for anything familiar but found nothing, only shadows and half-remembered scenes that left her terrified. Wherever she was, this was a bad place.

It was not until they had come to one final door that she remembered. The door slid open but this time Nora did not walk through. She felt her knees buckle and her chest tighten. Her eyes widened. Her throat went dry.

“No,” she heard herself whispering.

The room was small, barely wide enough for one person. Her gaze fixed on one of the objects lining the walls. A firm hand shoved her into the room and she heard her boots scuff the metal floor. She could not stop staring at the thing on the wall.

Her cryo pod.

“Look familiar?” Machson asked.

Nora was panicking. “Please,” she whispered. “I told you everything.”

But her tormentor was not listening. “It was a pain, building something that looked so similar to your outdated Vault, but just from the look on your face, I’d say it was worth it.” He glided over to her, taking his time as Nora tried to back away. His Synths caught her arms before she could run. “What, no snappy comebacks? No more clever remarks?”

Machson drew closer. “Look at you now,” he drawled. “You were so angry when I threatened Piper, but now… Now you’re afraid. Really afraid.” He cocked his head. “One last chance. Who are you?”

Nora struggled frantically against the Synths. “I’m telling you, I don’t know!”

Machson jerked his head toward the tube. Nora screamed. The Synths grabbed her by the arms, lifting her off the ground as she kicked at them. “I don’t know!” she cried. She was beyond reason now.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Machson said as the Synths hoisted Nora into the pod. “Beneath all that sarcasm and clever wit is the same, animal instinct that drives all of us. All you have to do is push someone just the right way and out it comes.”

The Synths threw Nora into the pod and shut the hood. Nora threw herself against it, beating and clawing at the glass. She could not stop herself. All she could think about was Nate and Shaun. She could not stop watching them die. Over and over, she heard her dead husband scream his last words.

_I’m not giving you Shaun!_

Mist filled the chamber. Nora felt herself pushing back against the metal as she tried to get away from it.

“I have a million ways to break you,” Machson’s voice came through the glass. Nora looked up, focusing on his face long enough in her mad panic to see him smiling. “And this is not the worst. I’ll leave you alone to think about that.”

Nora beat on the glass, shouting until her throat was sore that she did not know what he wanted. Her fingers clawed at every crack and seam she could find until her fingers bled. She did not know how long it lasted. Only when her arms ached from pounding against the unyielding glass, when her fingers were a mess of red, did she finally slump forward and let the darkness take her.


	7. The Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ann comes up with a daring plan to rescue Nora, but when Piper asks her a simple question, she realizes how impossible it will be to say goodbye

“This is the place?”

Ann watched Piper wriggle her way up the hill and peer between the dead grass at their destination. Just as she had suspected, it was nothing special. A few bombed-out buildings disguised as old ruins. Boards covered the windows and doors to prevent anyone settling in. Not that anyone would squat there for very long. She had already seen half a dozen Synth patrols wander by, each one giving the impression that taking prisoners was not in their brief.

Peering through her own bit of dead grass, Ann watched as yet another Synth vanished into a hidden cellar. “Well, either that or we’re about to ruin someone’s day for nothing.”

Piper groaned and slid back. “I have to give you credit, you do an excellent Nora.”

“The sarcasm was hard to get down,” Ann said with what she hoped was unmistakable reverence. “Even when we had a dozen guns on her, she always had something smart to say.”

Scooting down to the base of the hill, Piper shook her head and smiled. “Sounds like her.”

Ann crawled down the hill a moment later. They were as ready as they were going to be. The patrols had been mapped out, their point of entry found. All they needed to do now was figure out how to get in.

“So,” Piper said. “How do we get inside?”

Ann gave a very sheepish shrug. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“Why would I know? This is your home, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t call it that,” Ann muttered as she tried to suppress a shiver.

Piper, of course, did not fail to notice. Just once Ann wished the woman would miss something about her. “What is it like? For Synths inside the Institute, I mean?”

“Starting your next story?” Ann tried to sound cheeky but it just came off miserable.

The journalist shook her head. “I had never thought about it before. I’d always thought you just popped out of a tube and went off to replace someone.”

Ann gave her a look. “You’re not far wrong. I don’t know how it was for other Synths but for me it was all about Nora. It’s… hard to explain. I remember growing up but I know I didn’t. The memories are all wrong. The only ones that make sense started a few weeks before Nora was caught.” She gave Piper a wry smile that surely looked as forced as it felt. “So yeah, they popped me out of a tube, made sure I knew which way was up, then had me study Nora until I could tell her life story from memory.”

The look of sympathy that crossed Piper’s face left Ann dumbfounded. “So you had no choice in it?”

“No,” Ann said, still trying to figure out why Piper would feel anything for her. Her life in the Wasteland had lasted a few months. Piper lived here. “But, when you’re built with someone else’s face, you figure it out pretty quick. They like to say we are made for a purpose. It’s a nice way of saying made-to-order.” Ann hung her head for a moment. “To be honest with you, I believed it.”

Piper did not look surprised. “I can imagine.” When Ann raised an eyebrow Piper tried to smile. “We all want to believe we’re here for something. Having someone else tell you just makes it worse.”

“You’re awfully cynical,” Ann remarked.

Piper chuckled. “If that wasn’t in the first paragraph you read about me, someone in there needs to be fired.”

The Synth stuffed her hands under her shoulders and look back toward the hill. The real Nora, the one Piper should have been having this conversation with, was just over that rise. She tried not to look at Piper, at the face she would never see again after today was over. Even if Nora did not kill her on sight, it was not like she could hang around. That would be unfair to both Piper and Nora. They would never have their life back.

And Ann was not sure she could resist the urge to start impersonating Nora again. Just for one night.

But how to get in? Shooting their way through the front door was always an option, even if it was a terrible idea. She had never gotten a full list of the facility’s defenses. If even half of what they had asked for had made its way here, they would be fighting enough hardware to conquer a good chunk of the Commonwealth.

“I don’t suppose you can just walk in?” Piper asked. “Tell them you did the deed and poor Piper is dead?”

Ann was about to answer when she stopped. “No,” she said, looking over at Piper. “But I could if you were still alive.”

Piper cocked an eyebrow. “Lucky me?”

“Not really,” Ann admitted slowly. “I don’t think they’ll just let us walk in. But if I bring them the infamous Piper Wright in chains…”

The other woman’s face was expressionless. “Just walk in. Let them take me.”

“I know,” Ann looked at the ground. “It’s not much of an option, but –“

“I’ll do it,” Piper said quietly. Ann looked up to find the woman’s face serious but blanched with terror. She looked like she was about to be sick. “I can’t leave Nora in there. If this will get us in, I don’t care what I have to do.”

The determination in Piper’s eyes would have been inspiring if Ann was not having so many second thoughts. “They’re going to take you in for questioning. They’ll want to know all about the paper, how much you know about the Institute.”

Blood had yet to return to Piper’s face but she was still nodding. “I know,” she whispered, her voice surprisingly steady. “But whatever they’re doing to me, Nora’s been going through it for weeks.”

“It’s not a contest,” Ann growled.

That got a laugh out of her. “You may know Nora but you clearly did not study me. If she can handle it, I can handle worse.”

“Piper, I’m not even sure this will work. They might just shoot you the moment they get you alone.”

“Ann,” Piper had regained some of her color and had found enough life to glare at her unwilling companion. “I’m doing this. Like it or not, if this is the only way to get Nora back, I will be dead before I let her go through another hour alone. Not if there’s a chance I can save her.”

Ann glared back. She never should have said anything. It was a stupid idea that would get both of them killed for no good reason. Piper would probably just be shot as soon as she walked in and Ann, unable to keep her head after watching Piper die, would start tearing Synths apart with her bare hands until one of them put her down. Hell, they might both be shot on sight. They had attacked the Institute before. If they were recognized, this would all end before it had the chance to begin.

Such were Ann’s thoughts as they searched the surrounding buildings for a pair of handcuffs, finally locating them in the top drawer of a bedside table. It was a shame their mood was so dark. At least one of them should have made a crack about where these things had been. These bits of metal had probably seen as much adventure as the woman about to put them on.

But no one spoke. Piper stared at Ann and the Synth stared back. This, she decided, was not how it was supposed to end. There had to be more than this. When Piper held her wrists forward, Ann found herself reaching down to tighten the rings.

“Can I ask you something?” Piper asked as the first cuff tightened around her wrist. Ann froze as Piper’s hand came to rest on her arm. She scarcely dared to look up, as though meeting the woman’s eyes would frighten her away.

Ann managed a soft. “Yeah.”

“How much of it was real?”

Ann tried to hold Piper’s gaze but soon found herself looking at the handcuffs. She played with the open ring, wondering what the right answer was.

“All of it,” she said honestly. “I mean, at first, I was just playing the part. When I was holding you in the street that first day, I kept telling myself ‘it’s just the job, it’s just the job.’”

Piper managed a sly grin. “The bobby pin helped?”

“It did,” Ann laughed. “I don’t know anyone who could keep their head after something like that.”

She looked up to find Piper smiling with her. These were the times she was going to miss. They had not been given many of them, but they were more than Ann had ever deserved.

“After that,” Ann continued slowly. “I just sort of… fell for you.” Saying it out loud sounded so ridiculous. She stammered out a laugh. “I know how it sounds, but it’s true.”

Silence followed. Ann kept playing with the handcuffs. “When I told you I loved you, I meant it,” her voice was little more than a whisper now. “Even now, I keep wondering why I said anything. Why I ever told you I was a Synth.” She gave Piper a deeply mournful look. “I could have just been Nora.”

Piper’s free hand worked its way up Ann’s arm. “I know,” she pulled Ann close and wrapped her arms around the Synth that had taken everything from her.

When she finally pulled away, Ann was more convinced than ever that she was doing the right thing. More than that, she knew beyond a doubt that it was the worst decision she had ever made. If Nora did not appreciate this, she would find out what it was like when Ann really did aim for her heart.

“So,” Ann managed. “This is how it ends.”

“Not exactly how you imagined it?” Piper asked, handcuffs jingling off one wrist.

“No, but I think this will be for the best,” Ann’s voice failed even to convince herself.

It did not convince Piper either. That stupid press cap flopped about as the woman cocked her head just so. “For what it’s worth,” she said. “I wish things had been different.”

Piper held her wrists out again and Ann slowly clicked the other ring closed. She could just imagine every Raider within a hundred miles suddenly sitting up and thinking ‘something wonderful just happened.’ Ann could just imagine them being attacked now, so close to their goal. It would have been the perfect place to rob the Synth of her redemption.

“Me too,” Ann whispered.

Ann moved closer to Piper. One hand slipped under her coat and fumbled with her sidearm. Piper laughed awkwardly and Ann blushed like an idiot. “Can’t walk in with that,” Piper chirped.

The spare pistol found its way into Ann’s belt. With her other hand, Ann reached into her pocket. “One last thing,” she said with a smile.

This time Piper’s laugh was music. “A bobby pin?”

“Just in case,” Ann pressed the bit of metal into one of the pockets inside Piper’s jacket. “If you find yourself alone, don’t wait around for me. Whatever happens, I’ll catch up.”

“I know,” Piper took a deep breath and looked back toward the hill. “Come on.”

Ann took her by the shoulder and began leading her into the lion’s den. “Try to act drugged,” she said. “Unless you want to play dead and I can carry you in. Don’t want them wondering too hard how I got you here.”

“I’ll make it work,” Piper promised. After a moment’s hesitation, a wicked grin appeared over Piper’s face. “Trust me. Just… keep you head down when we go in.”


	8. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper is taken prisoner by the Institute in a desperate attempt to find Nora

It was not until Piper’s boot struck Ann in the back of the head that she realized ‘keep your head down’ had been meant in a very literal sense. She tried to keep from laughing as she went straight to the floor, her head almost bouncing off the wall. The sounds of Piper fighting off the other Synth guards would have been more amusing if Ann had been able to see straight.

“Get your hands off me!”

Piper was shouting and kicking and probably even biting the metal drones trying to keep her still. Only when one of them leveled its laser rifle at her head did the woman take it down a notch. Ann did her best to crawl her way up the wall. It was not even an act. The woman kicked like a mule.

“Don’t kill her,” Ann tried to keep her voice level. “I’d hate to have brought her all this way just for that.”

One of the Gen Threes turned to face her. “Orders were to terminate subject Piper Wright.”

“Check again,” Ann stepped up to him and tried not to stumble as she did. She may as well have been on a ship for how much the floor was moving. “I have operational authority over her. She’s more valuable alive than dead.”

“Your authority is not recognized as superseding the commands of Doctor Machson. Piper Wright is to be executed on sight.”

If Piper was giving her a look, Ann could not tell. She was too busy trying not to throw up all over the floor. “Things change. Doctor Machson will want a chance to interrogate her, find out what she knows. As her handler, I have the authority to bring these changes up to him in person.”

Ann gestured to the very angry reporter being restrained by three Gen Ones. “And besides, it’s not like she’s going anywhere. Worse comes to worst, I’ll do it myself.”

The Synth stared at her blankly for a moment. “Acknowledged.”

Ann tried not to roll her eyes. She had forgotten how infuriating Synths could be when placed under full Institute control. These ones were hardly better than drones. “So I can take her back now?”

“No,” the Synths holding Piper began dragging her off. “Doctor Machson has asked to question her personally. You are to follow me. He will debrief you shortly.”

Seeing no alternative, Ann fell into step behind her guide. One mercy of being escorted by a mindless husk was that she did not feel the need to make small talk. Instead, she stared at the back of the Synth’s head and wondered what made her so different from it. Someone owed her some answers.

The Synth led her to a small, windowless room deep in the compound and left her with a terse “You will wait here.”

And that was that. Ann walked around the room once before deciding it was time to make her escape. Machson should come visit her first but it was too great a risk that he would check in on Piper. This would all be for nothing if Piper got herself killed mouthing off to the man who had taken Nora away.

Assuming Nora was even still here. Ann groaned aloud. How had she gotten talked in to this? Oh. Right.

At least they had left her armed. Ann sidled her way over to the door. No one waited outside. Apparently her cover was not blown just yet, for what that was worth. The moment she left this room, the first Synth that tried to stop her would catch a bullet and then the fun would really begin. She had gotten lucky talking Piper into a cell rather than onto the firing range. That kind of luck never came around twice.

She paused at the door. Was that her thought or Nora’s?

Ann walked out the door, turned left, and started to run. She found no Synths for the first few corridors, dodging patrols and keeping to what she hoped were the blind spots of the security cameras. It would not last long. Someone was bound to notice the new arrival wandering about in full combat gear.

Someone did notice. Ann ducked around a corner and found herself staring into a camera lens. She nearly bolted when she caught sight of a doorway at the far end of the corridor. It looked sturdier than the others and the hallway leading to it had twice the cameras as anywhere else. Through the glass were banks of computers, some of them displaying live feeds of the area.

A security office. Ann grinned, straightened up, and marched in. The Synths inside did not miss their uninvited guest. The ones seated at computer terminals kept their focus but the few wandering the room all turned to face her.

One of them spoke. “AN-849. You arrived with subject Piper Wright and have been ordered to wait for debrief by Doctor Machson. You are outside your assigned area. Please return.”

“I will,” Ann did her best not to imitate the deadpan voice of the Synth, tempting though it was. “Just came by to check on Piper. She’s pretty clever. Wouldn’t want her getting away.”

“We have the situation under control,” the Synth pointed to a live feed across the room. Piper sat at a metal table, hands hidden beneath the lip. Ann could not see her arms moving but no doubt she getting ready to slip the cuffs. “Please return to your assigned area or you will be marked away without leave.”

Ann put her hands up. “As you wish,” she turned to go. “Oh, one thing.” She produced something from her jacket and set it on a nearby computer bank. “For good luck.”

One of the Synths picked it up. “A baseball,” it droned.

Another questioned her as she passed. “What are you doing?”

Ann quick-stepped out of the room. “Counting down from four.”

 

Piper stared into the Synth’s dead eyes. “Nice place you got here.”

Her interrogator did not answer. Neither did his two friends standing behind him, flanking him as he sat across the table from the solitary woman. Piper talked anyway. “I like the whole old-world-revival feeling, but it’s a bit heavy-handed. I mean, okay, I get it, you don’t like the way we decorate up above, but come on. This place is really shiny.”

Not even a blink. “How much time does it take to keep this place clean? Or is that just what all of you do in your free time? Drag mops around when you’re not on the clock? Do you even have off hours?”

The Synths stared. Piper sighed. “Hi, Piper Wright, Publick Occurrences. Is it true that Synth infiltrators are poisoning the water sources of nearby settlements? No comment? What about the rampant kidnappings blamed on the Institute? Any comment on these allegations?”

The ventilation rattled. The journalist slumped. “You guys would do great in PR.”

Two of them turned toward the door. The motion was so sudden but so jarring that Piper nearly lost her seat. “Hey, I didn’t mean it! You’re doing a great job in… door guarding?”

The door hissed open as the pair moved out, weapons at the ready. The third remained motionless. Piper leaned over the table. “I get it. Just you and me now, right? I mean, I’m flattered, but I’m kind of in a committed relationship. You understand, don’t you? You shouldn’t feel bad. You’re not the first Synth to feel this way about me.”

“You are suggesting that AN-849 has developed feelings for you?”

Piper stared. “Ah, no. I mean, yes, she told me that she cared about me, but only when I thought she was Nora.”

The Synth blinked. Piper tried not to curse as she worked the bobby pin. She should have let Nora give her lessons. Well, in her defense, the woman had tried, but a few jokes from Piper about quick fingers and then everyone got a little too distracted.

The robotic voice droned again, this time with poorly-simulated menace. “AN-849 has been reported wandering the compound. Do you know anything about this?”

“Uh,” Piper tried to smile and take attention off the awkward shifting under the table. “Nope. Probably looking for this Mach-something you keep talking about.”

“So AN-849 means nothing to you.”

“Well, not nothing,” all the emotion had to be drained from Piper’s voice. When the Synth cocked its head, Piper smiled. “She shot my girlfriend.”

“And this makes you feel anger?”

Piper could not help herself. “What the fuck do you think?”

Click.

The Synth looked down at the table. Piper felt the handcuffs fall from her wrists. “Oops.”

A rifle appeared from nowhere as the Synth shot to its feet. The chair behind it went skidding back and bounced against the wall. Piper dove under the table just as a flash of blue boiled away the back of her chair. Not even stopping to wince as she hit the floor, Piper grabbed at the Synth’s ankles and yanked.

The Synth fell like a rock. Piper heard the rifle hit the table and another blue bolt took away a piece of the wall behind her. She caught sight of the rifle spinning away across the floor just as the Synth fell and landed a kick against her shoulder. Pain flared up and down her side and she heard herself scream as she lost her grip on the thing’s leg.

She heard the creature scrambling for the gun. Knowing she would never make it, Piper shoved herself back across the well-polished floor and grabbed hold of the chair leg. The Synth brought the rifle up and squeezed but Piper was already swinging. The chair caught the Synth in the arms, knocking the weapon free and sending it skittering away a second time.

The Synth lunged at her. Piper dove for the rifle. Her fingers coiled around the stock just as something grabbed her leg and ripped her back across the floor. Piper rolled, tucking her arms in close and swinging the rifle around. The Synth brought its fist down at her head.

Piper squeezed the trigger. The muzzled hissed, crackled, and snapped as it burned a hole in the Synth’s chest. It stared, just as lifelessly as it had when it was alive, and toppled to the floor.

“Thanks for the interview,” Piper groaned as she picked herself up off the floor. “You’ll understand if I don’t quote you.”

The door hissed open. Piper whirled, training her rifle on the opening just as a familiar face burst in. “Ann!”

“Piper!” Ann looked from the dead Synth to the battered woman, not sure where she should run first. “Wow. Nice work. Slipped the handcuffs?”

Piper walked across the room and retrieved her press cap from where it had fallen during the scuffle. “They must have tightened during my performance. I had to pick the lock.”

Ann looked down at the woman’s wrists. Trails of crimson still ran rampant. “Are you alright?”

“Alright? I’ve spent years researching these creeps, watching them take people out of their homes. I watched as they took Nora from me. But today, I don’t have to just watch. Today, I get to fight back. Today,” Piper set the cap on her head and tilted it to the side. “Is a very good day.”

Ann chuckled. “Took one to the head, did you?”

“Not in the mood, AN-849.”

Ann shivered at the sound of her own serial number. “Fair enough.”

Piper grabbed a handful of spare fusion cells off the dead Synth and made for the door. “We’re wasting time. Nora’s here somewhere.”

Ann moved out first. “Follow me. I think I know where they’re keeping her.”

They did not get far before the whole world decided to step in. Alarms began to blare before they were through the first intersection. Footsteps could be heard in all directions as Synths flooded the corridors. Lasers crackled to life from every corner and chased the beleaguered rescuers up and down the halls.

Ann was in incredible form. Piper had never seen anyone move faster. Even Nora would have been hard-pressed to match the woman as she snapped her rifle this way and that, giving each target the exact same, two-shot burst that invariably sent them sprawling. Piper began to feel clumsy in her wake.

They were rounding a corner when Ann shoved Piper behind a crate and began popping away. Piper kept her head down and watched, wondering for the first time what would happen when they found Nora. With metal being boiled away all around her and Ann taking on an army by herself, her mind did not give it much thought, but it did occur to Piper that she had never actually said goodbye.

Her gaze swiveled down the hall. A small gang of Synths turned the corner and ran right into Piper’s laser fire.

Then she noticed the room beside them. It was a cell.

Piper sprang to her feet, tearing down the hallway as Ann shouted at her. She ran to one after another, her legs moving faster each time she saw it was empty. She did not even notice the firing stop. She just ran and ran and ran.

Until she saw her.

Curled up against the back of the room, her arms around her legs, her hair falling in haggard waves around her, was Nora.


	9. Redemption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper rescues Nora from the Institute. Ann makes a fateful decision.

“NORA!”

The sound that ripped from Piper’s throat was almost inhuman. Nora’s head snapped up, her eyes shining. The sound that came through the glass was so muted that Piper could barely hear her own name shouted back.

Unable to wait another second, Piper leveled her rifle and melted the door panel until it hissed open. Nora had leapt off the bed and was halfway across the room when Piper slammed into her, wrapping her arms around her in a flying hug that almost took both of them to the floor. The other woman squeezed her tightly enough to break ribs but Piper did not care.

“You’re alive,” Nora whispered. “You’re alive.”

Piper buried herself in the woman’s shoulder and tried to keep her voice from choking up. “Of course I’m alive, idiot. I’m right here.”

Nora mumbled something into Piper’s shoulder but both were too busy squeezing the life from each other to hear it. Piper tried to wipe her eyes on the woman’s shoulder. She could not be seen crying. She would never hear the end of it. _Stop crying, you big baby. It’s just Nora. She’ll kick your ass if she sees you like this._

She closed her eyes and squeezed harder. _I thought I’d lost you._

“I can’t believe it’s you,” Nora murmured happily as she managed to pry Piper off of her. One of her hands reached up to push Piper’s hair back behind her ear. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean, what –“ Piper stopped as she saw Nora’s wrist. “What happened? What did they do to you?”

Nora looked down at her hands as if seeing them for the first time. Black and yellow bruises were everywhere. Piper could see them snaking up the woman’s arms. A mess of red cracks that spidered up over her wrists and out of sight beneath her jacket. She had not even been able to clean off the dried blood. Piper was scared even to run her fingers along them lest she break whatever bones were left.

The battered woman shook her head. “Nothing, it doesn’t matter, I –“

Nora trailed off as Piper’s hands moved over her side. She could feel her ribs. Piper traced a delicate, horrified hand over her face now gaunt and creased with exhaustion. She could not bring herself to ask how long it had been since she had been fed, much less how long since she had slept.

Nora’s eyes, the only part of her still shiningly alive at Piper’s rescue, glowed brighter still. She was always too good at reading Piper’s mind. “I’m alright, Piper. You saved me. I am a bit hungry, though, if you’ve got anything…”

Frantically digging through her jacket produced another life-saving pack of gumdrops and nothing else. “Here,” Piper handed them over and wondered which corner of the room to curl up in and die. “I’m so sorry, Nora. I should have gotten here sooner.”

The gumdrops had vanished almost before reaching Nora’s outstretched hand. Nora groaned as she chewed. “Oh, God, I’ll never understand how these things still taste so good after two hundred years. I must be out of my mind.”

Piper managed a smile. “They’re hard to find, but I think you earned them.”

“Once we’re out of here, I’ll make it up to you,” Nora looked Piper over, meeting her eyes and smiling. It was amazing. She should have been broken. Dead. With a grin, she threw herself at Piper. “I can’t believe it’s you.”

Another laugh escaped from between Piper’s traitorous lips. “Not exactly a good time, Blue. Come on, we need to get out of here.”

Nora reluctantly let go and beamed at her. “I knew it. I knew that Synth couldn’t fool you. They kept telling me you were living with it, sleeping with it. I knew they were lying.”

The silence that followed was the most painful of Piper’s life. She felt her easy smile slipping, her relief fading away as the world crept back in on their reunion. Nora watched Piper’s face fall. She looked confused, concerned for the woman she loved. Beaten, tortured, starved, left here to die, and her first thought was for the wellbeing of her lover. Her lover, who had been sleeping with another woman. It should have been Piper in this cell.

At last Nora’s joy began to fade. “Piper –“

Gunfire took away whatever she was going to say next. Piper leapt out of her skin at the sound. She had all but forgotten Ann was even here.

Nora shoved passed Piper and went for the door. “Nora!” Piper scrambled after her. She was going to see Ann. She was going to see the woman who shot her. A few days ago, she would have run after her only to help twist the knife in the dead Synth, but now that Synth was Ann.

Piper nearly collided with Nora as she stopped in the doorway. Piper caught the woman’s arm as she skidded by but failed to make a sound. Nora was rigid as a hunting dog staring at a wounded animal. Piper had never seen her this angry. It terrified her.

“Nora,” she managed. “Nora, look at me.” The sound of Piper’s voice brought Nora’s attention back on her. “She helped me. She came here to rescue you.”

“She put me here, Piper,” Nora growled. “She didn’t hurt you, did she?”

“No, she...” Piper fumbled for words. Nora deserved her revenge but not against Ann. Why were things always so complicated? “She’s on our side, now. She saved my life, she helped me find you.”

“She’s with them!” Nora hissed. “They put chips in their head. If they flip that switch, she’ll kill you!”

“They did!” Piper shouted. “They told her to kill me and she didn’t! She helped me find you, after everything I did to her!” She felt herself shaking and tried to calm down. “I’m only here because of her.”

Piper waited for Nora’s comeback. She had seen the bruises covering the woman’s arms. Even without knowing what she had gone through, just looking in her wild eyes was enough to know it was horrible. Whatever physical and mental tortures these monsters had devised to break her, none would have been held back.

They beat her, starved her, all the while tormenting her with the knowledge that the woman she loved did not miss her. Worse, she had not even noticed Nora’s absence. While Nora had been tortured, Piper had was sleeping with a stranger.

Piper winced as Nora opened her mouth to drown her with those thousand terrible things Ann had been responsible for.

“Okay.”

Piper looked up in shock. “What?”

“Okay,” Nora repeated. Piper watched as she sagged under the weight of a full-bodied sigh. “I’ll trust you.” She tried to smile. “She saved your life, huh?”

“Something like that,” Piper’s smile was no more convincing.

“Alright. What’s a shot in the chest, huh?” Nora put a hand to her forehead and scrubbed at her ragged bangs. “Look, I’m sorry. I’ll… We’ll deal with this after you’re safe. That’s all that should matter right now.”

Ann had noticed them by now and was doing her best to blend in with the background. Piper looked over her shoulder and saw the Synth pretending to watch the hallway, but the born journalist saw more. She saw the quiet wanting in her eyes, the way she would flick her gaze back for just a moment, her eyes jealously lighting on Piper’s hand as it restrained Nora’s arm.

“Thank you,” Piper whispered to both of them. Nora said something. Ann did not so much as move but Piper liked to think her look softened just a little.

Well, if the Institute failed to kill them, maybe Piper would get to see the two most terrifying women in the Wasteland kill each other for her affections. Put that story in print and she would be set up for life.

Nora eased away from Piper and stalked down the hallway toward her Synth counterpart. Ann continued to pretend she did not exist and Piper followed behind. “The entrance is back that way,” Piper pointed up the hall.

“Can’t leave yet,” Nora said, walking right up to Ann. With slow, deliberate grace, she extended one hand. Stone-faced, Ann unlimbered her rifle, glanced once more at Piper, and handed it over. Nora almost looked disappointed.

“You want to stay?” Piper sputtered.

A belt of ammunition passed from Ann to Nora with even greater tension. “The man in charge here was a really terrible host. He wants you dead. Nat, too. I’m not about to let him walk out of here.”

Ann gave her a look that said she agreed but was smart enough to keep her mouth shut. Piper looked from one to the other, miserable.

Nora looked up at Ann. “Well?”

“Control room?” Ann shrugged. Nora’s glare grew even more heated and Ann gestured vaguely down the hall. “Probably that way.” She looked back at Piper apologetically. “We shouldn’t leave this place standing. They came after you once. They’ll do it again.”

“It’s right,” Nora said icily. Piper did not miss the flash of pained fury that crossed Ann’s features.

Piper wanted to tear her hair out. This could not end soon enough. “He said that? He wants Nat dead?”

Nora chuckled. “Of course that’s the part you hear.”

It should not have been this hard. She wanted Machson dead for what he had done to her. After seeing Nora’s arms, she wanted him dead twice more. And then there was Ann. Perhaps it was that the Synth had taken on so much of Nora’s personality that Piper could not help but care about her. More likely it was that she was a good person forced to do the work of a profoundly evil man. And she did not deserve that.

Her pistol seemingly reloaded itself, her hands moving only out of muscle memory. This was not how it was supposed to end. She should have been able to say goodbye to Ann. She should have been able to look at Nora without thinking about her Synth replacement.

Nora was giving Ann another death glare. “Lead the way.”

Ann cast a forlorn look at Piper, then started down the hall. Nora watched her, adjusting her rifle meaningfully against her chest as she passed. Whatever Machson had done to her, it must have been horrible for her to let Ann walk around freely.

Hordes of Synths met them at every corner. Piper very quickly learned that raising her pistol was pointless. Between Ann and Nora, it did not matter how many Synths they sent after them. They fell in droves. Most never even managed to fire a shot.

It was not until they reached the interior of the facility, where turrets popped from walls and Synths had set up metal barricades that the three women had to slow. Nora skidded as she took a corner and was nearly cut apart by automatic laser fire. Ann, a few steps behind, stopped short and caught Piper by the arm to keep her from making the same mistake.

As Nora scrambled back to shelter, Ann pelted the Synths in the hallway with laser fire from a scavenged rifle. Nora had purloined both the woman’s rifle and her sidearm, leaving her with whatever she could find. Piper did her bit, popping off a round here and there, but the identical stares of disapproval persuaded her to keep her head down. She had said it herself: she was a journalist. Nora killed Deathclaws.

And Ann killed Sentry Bots. Not to be outdone by her human original, the Synth lobbed a captured cryo grenade just as the lumbering monster rounded the corner. The throw was spot on, landing the explosive right on top of the little red dots that marked the behemoth’s head, snap-freezing the glass and metal as it detonated. Nora, ignoring for own spite, punched through the weakened dome with her rifle while Ann melted the tracks to keep it from rolling away. When the self-destruct sequence was tripped, there was nowhere for it to go. Its tracks spun uselessly, its body turned a bright orange, and then it was gone. The ensuing explosion ended the fight and gave everyone in the facility a moment of pause as the roof threatened to cave in.

Nora did not pause. She charged ahead, kicked down a door that somehow still clung to its track, and vanished from sight. Piper bolted after her, cringing as muzzle flashes lit the doorway and laser crackled just out of sight. Ann followed more slowly and probably just to keep Piper within arm’s reach.

Someone was yelling from inside the room. It took Piper a moment to realize it was a man’s voice, so high was the pitch. It was squealing in terror. Piper burst through the door to find Nora in the back of the room, half-hidden by a row of computer monitors and surrounded by dead Synths. Before Piper could move, Ann came in behind her and caught her wrist.

It did not matter either way. Nora, too far to be reached by hand and too far gone to be reached by voice, stalked toward something unseen on the floor. Even from here, Piper could see the murder in her eyes. The frantic, squealing pleas reached a fever pitch as Nora took one easy stride, shouldered her rifle, and pulled the trigger once.

She did not even look back after. Just turned on her heel and walked away even before the last echoes of the shot had faded away. It was not until she was almost at the door that Piper noticed Ann had disappeared. Piper moved in front of the door even as all her instincts told her to run. Nora was marching quickly and blindly enough to go through a brick wall, but the slightest touch from Piper’s fingers stopped her in her tracks.

“Nora?”

Nora looked up from Piper’s hand, startled out of her own little world. She managed shaky smile. “Hey. Sorry. We can go.”

Piper stopped her as she tried to leave again. “Are you alright? You look like death.”

“Yeah,” she lied. “I mean, no, I’m not, but this is a start. You’re safe. You will be safe once we get out of here.”

Looking back at the terminals, Piper noticed the edge of a man’s hand just barely visible in the room’s central aisle. There was blood running between the fingers. “That was him? The one who took you?” Piper paused a moment to think. “What was his name?”

Nora looked back at where the body lay, staring through the metal as though she could see it plain as day. “That was him.” Nora’s eyes were dead as she spoke. “I don’t remember his name. Wasn’t much use to someone in my position, anyway.”

Without another word, Nora stalked from the room. Piper stared another moment at the hand before making her own exit.

 

Ann waited for Nora to pass before making eye contact with Piper. She had yet to think of any words to say to the woman she had replaced that would not result in a sharp exchange of gunfire. As much as she wanted the life that Nora had, she was not willing to kill her to get it.

She would not do that to Piper. “I think this is goodbye, then.”

They had both seen this coming but Piper managed to look startled all the same. “What do you mean?”

Ann tried to smile. “Someone needs to clean up this mess. I’ll stay behind, seal the facility. Maybe even cover your tracks.”

“And what, you die holding them off, your back to the wall and dead Synths piled up to the ceiling?”

“It has a ring to it,” Ann said easily. “No, nothing so exciting. I’ll rig the facility to purge itself after you’re gone. That will take care of anyone still inside that might have a reason to want you dead.”

“And you,” Piper pointed out helpfully.

Nora was staring at her but saying nothing. The woman’s face was unreadable, something that struck Ann as odd considering they shared it. Ann looked back at Piper. “And me. How else was this supposed to end?”

“I don’t know,” Piper looked around helplessly. “Not like this.”

“You don’t have to die here,” Nora said quietly, startling both other women. When Piper whipped her head around, Nora just shrugged and looked the other way. “Seems like a stupid thing to do, is all.”

Piper turned back to Ann, who just smiled. “Yeah, well, someone has to do it. Might as well be me.”

The blaring of an alarm cut through their moment. Ann looked down the hall toward the sound of rumbling tracks. “That will be another Sentry Bot.”

“More than one,” Nora agreed. “We need to leave.”

Piper looked frantically back and forth before finally sagging. She gave Ann a heart-wrenching look. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Ann nodded back and managed a smile. “You gave me a life. For a few weeks, anyway.”

For one brief, beautiful moment, Piper looked at Ann the same way she had just a few weeks before. Like she was Nora. Like she loved her. For one moment, Ann foolishly believed she would ask her to stay, tell her not to throw her life away. She imagined Piper throwing herself at her, not kissing her or promising to love her, but just holding her. That was how it should have been.

The steady grinding of tracks on tile spurred Nora to take Piper by the elbow and start leading her away. Ann watched her go, wondering one last time what life would have been like if she had just kept quiet.

None of it mattered now.

Ann tore down the hallway as soon as they were out of sight. She may not get the girl but she could at least make sure someone got to live happily ever after. She took the corner to the control room without slowing and darted inside. The good Doctor Machson lay splayed out on the floor, his face almost unrecognizable. Nora had made it clean, at least, even if he did not deserve it.

She stepped over the pool of red and up to the bank of monitors. The one showing the entrance showed a few Synths standing watch, waiting in ambush for Nora and Piper to make their escape. Not that it would matter very much. Nora, battered and bruised and mentally unstable, was still good protection for Piper against the Wasteland. Ann took some solace in that as she watched the metal forms spark and sprawl against the floor.

Watching Piper leave was harder. She contemplated tripping the failsafe and dropping a blast door between them and the outside world. She was still thinking about it as they passed into the sunlight and out into the wide world beyond. Then she did hit the switch.

“So,” she said to the empty room. “Was it worth it?”

Silence answered her. She hesitated. Silence. No treads. No sound of steel feet marching against the tile floor. They were up to something.

Ann had told the truth about the facility-wide purge. The problem was she had no idea how to actually activate it. The only unlocked terminal in the room did not have a helpfully-labeled button for her to click, so she was reduced to the last resort of desperate souls: find a really big stick and start swinging away.

An eerie quiet had settled over the facility as Ann jogged down yet another unmarked hallway. This one would lead to the facility’s generator. Given the old-world origins of the facility and the Institute’s inborn utility, she knew she could give the nuclear fusion reactor a good poke or two and reduce the whole place to its constituent particles.

“This is not how I expected to be greeting you.”

Ann dropped to the floor, skidding to a halt and whipping her rifle around in panic. The voice had scared the life out of her. Only when it came again did she realize it was coming from the overhead public address system.

“You’re very much like her. At least, I like to think you are. Pride in my own work, you see.”

Ann started toward the reactor again, vainly trying to hide the new urgency in her stride. “You have me at a disadvantage.”

“Indeed. Forgive me, my social skills have relaxed somewhat over the years, and I confess I have no idea how to introduce myself as a voice in the sky. You may call me Father.”

Ann skidded around a corner with an impudent chuckle. “Father, huh? Got some unresolved issues with your family I should know about?”

The voice in the sky sharpened. “More than you could imagine.”

Left to ponder the vague response, Ann skidded around a second bend and reached the reactor room door. It hissed open before she could input the code. She raised an eyebrow at the camera hanging above the door.

“I have a proposition for you,” the voice echoed louder as Ann entered the larger room. “I know you can destroy this facility before my Coursers arrive to stop you. You might even be a match for them when they do.”

“And you would prefer I don’t?”

“I would indeed.”

Ann palmed one of her frag grenades. “And why would I do that?”

The door at the far end of the room hissed open to reveal a Sentry Bot. Ann nearly pulled the pin when she saw the lights in its head had winked off. She slowly lowered the explosive, pin in place. Had it been live, she doubted she could have dodged its opening volley. She might have been killed before she ever knew it was there.

“Because you want to live. And because you want Piper to live.”

Ann tossed the grenade lightly. “If you’re planning on threatening her until I do what you want –“

“Piper Wright is not the Institute’s main concern.”

But the Institute was Piper’s. Ann restrained a smile. Underestimating the girl in the press cap was a mistake the Institute would only ever make once.

Again Ann looked down at the reactor. “Then you’ll leave her alone?”

“For the moment,” the voice hedged. Ann looked dryly at a nearby camera. “There is only so much I can promise. If she continues to impede out work, I can promise only that I will not attempt to have her killed.”

“Aren’t you sweet,” Ann plotted out the flight path of her grenade and made ready to die.

“I’m offering you a chance to walk out of here alive.”

“And what, watch from on high as you send another me after Piper? I remember being told over and over about how vicious everyone was up above. That woman is living proof that there’s still hope, that you’re wrong about them. And I’ll be damned if I die for the same bullshit cause you created me for.”

“Better to die alone, reducing a ruin to dust? What do you gain by pulling that pin? Your precious Piper will surely feel safer, but you overplay your hand. Destroy this facility and I can promise that I will be paying far closer attention to the exploits of Publick Occurrences. And you know better than anyone how easy it is to pass a Synth through the protective Wall of Diamond City.”

Ann faltered. “Fuck.”

“And I feel I must point out that you were created by Machson rather than myself. It is his purpose you rail against, not mine. In point of fact, I am glad you killed him. He was a sadist. Had you not come when you did, their doors would have been kicked down by a dozen Courser agents.”

Again she let the grenade fall to her side. She suddenly felt a moment of kinship for the lowly pawn in chess. Being forever kept in the dark and pushed constantly toward the enemy, only to find the other pieces did not even move the same way. “Why?”

The disembodied voice chuckled. The door behind her hissed open, startling her. She had not noticed it close. “Leave now, and I promise I will explain everything. After that, should you decide to leave, you may go where you please. The Institute will not trouble you and you will have no interference from me.”

Ann eyed the door. “What was so important about this place, anyway?”

“Nothing,” Father said easily. A moment of silence followed before his voice returned. “You have no idea who she is, do you? Who you were made to replace?”

She did not, but Nora was not the woman who held Ann’s attention. Her jealousy, surely, but beyond that, not even a fleeting thought.

It was those thoughts that stayed her hand even as they begged her to pull the pin. This place had cost Piper everything. It had forced Ann into the role of kidnapper and very nearly that of a murderer. She could have killed Piper. She would have.

“And you’ll tell me everything?”

The satisfaction was evident even through the speaker. “Anything you ask.”

“Why I’m different? Who Nora is?”

“Everything.”


	10. The Time We Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper and Nora return to Diamond City and try to make sense of everything that happened

Nora found Diamond City much as she had left it so long ago, but seeing it again nearly brought her to her knees in relief. She was home. The lights blazing high above the Wall called to her in a way she had not known was possible. Even before the war, before being frozen, she had never felt such relief at seeing a few burning light bulbs.

She was so overcome with the sensation that, for a brief moment, she forgot all about the silence between her and the woman she loved. Nora looked over at Piper as they crossed over the threshold, passed the guards that could not tell Nora from her Synth impersonator.

“Home sweet home,” Nora said as they walked, pathetically grasping at conversation.

Piper nodded. “Yeah. It’s good to be back.”

The wretched silence returned with a vengeance. Nora looked helplessly at the zombie in the red trench coat. She needed to say something. After everything they had gone through, all the sacrifices Piper had made to get her back, here she stood, unable to speak. It was a familiar feeling around the beautiful woman but never in all their time together had it felt like this. At least when Piper hated her she was vocal about it. They had bickered and nearly come to blows more than once during those first days, something that would normally have made Nora smile to remember. After that, any silence was a comfortable one, an understanding, comforting absence that came from simply being in each other’s presence. They were together. What need was there for words?

As they neared the bottom of the steps, Nora decided enough was enough. Bold as a terrified child, she hopped forward and managed to touch Piper on the elbow without wetting herself. “Hey, listen, uh… thanks.”

Piper turned to face her, a forced smile on her face. “You would have done the same for me.”

“I know. I mean, I would. Of course. I just… It wasn’t easy, going through all that,” she stammered. Piper looked down at Nora’s battered arms. “I don’t mean that. Shit.”

A tiny laugh managed to escape Piper’s lips. “It’s alright, Blue.”

Blue. There it was. She had not used Nora's name since leaving the Institute. “They kept telling me about you. And…”

“Ann.”

“Ann. They would tell me about how she was going to kill you. Every day they would wake me up with that. I was going crazy thinking about it.”

Piper looked miserably at the mud. Nora tried not to swear. This was not about her. “This isn’t coming out right at all,” she muttered. “What I’m trying to say is… I know this was hard for you.”

The press cap nearly fell off Piper’s head as she looked up. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t need to hide it, Piper. You thought she was me.”

Nausea, coupled with an even more sickly guilt, washed over the woman’s face. Nora tried to smile reassuringly but failed to put her at ease. Piper started a dozen sentences at once. “I didn’t – I mean, she didn’t – they tortured you.“

“I know,” Nora soothed. “I know, but that was nothing. Piper, I don’t know what I would do if I found out you were someone else. What they did to me, I would go through a thousand times if it meant knowing you were safe. That you were you. I can’t even imagine how hard that was on you.” With every word she spoke, Piper looked more and more like she was about to crack under the strain of it all. Nora would have given anything to hold her, to keep that pain from her. “And after all that, you came back for me. You gave Ann another chance so you could find me. I don’t think you realize how brave that was. I don’t think anyone in the world could have done something like that.”

Piper tried in vain to hide the tears forming in her eyes. “Someone had to save your ass,” she said into her sleeve.

“Someone should be paying you for that,” Nora took a few steps closer and reached one hand down to take Piper’s. Even from this small touch Piper flinched away, drawing her hand back in a casual, horrified twist.

“Dammit,” Piper looked around for someone to blame. “Why can’t I stop seeing her? Every time I look at you, why can’t it just be you?”

“Piper.”

“This would have been so much easier if I could have hated her. I tried to, but she was just –“ Piper wheeled toward the market.

“Piper.”

“I should have come for you sooner. I should have known it wasn’t you.”

“Piper,” Nora’s voice never rose. No matter how badly she wanted to take Piper into her arms, after everything she had been through, she did not deserve to have that forced on her. She deserved to be waited for.

The girl in the press cap grabbed at her own hair as she spun around. She looked wildly at Nora, like she could not believe the woman was still there. Piper, the woman who had saved Nora from the Institute, the woman who had given her so much, who had given her a reason to keep living when all the world had died, waited to be shouted down. There was so much guilt in those eyes. They waited, glistening in the light, for the woman who owed her everything to fill the air with hate.

Nora just smiled. “I love you.”

For once, the words came easily, and it was just that simple. Piper stopped spinning. She stopped grabbing at her hair. The lines on her forehead faded as the tension left her. “You love me?” she asked in an innocent whisper surely heard nowhere since the world ended.

“I love you.”

Piper’s hands slowly uncurled as her arms fell to her sides and the faintest, sweetest trace of a smile played at the corner of her lips. Nora could have kept going for hours. She could have talked on and on about how beautiful she was when she was at a loss for words, or how brilliant and passionate she was when she finally found them.

But Nora was not much for words, and even if she was, she would not have spoiled the moment. Nothing could compare to watching Piper come alive in front of her. Any words she spoke or sweet things she whispered would have fallen far short of what she felt for the woman with that damn press cap.

Piper laughed. “I love you, too.” She wiped at her eyes again. “Ah, look at me, bawling in the street.”

“Piper Wright, the dreaded journalist,” Nora chuckled softly. “Brought low at last?”

“Wasn’t fair,” Piper protested, still scrubbing at whatever was stuck in her eye. “Didn’t expect you to fight dirty.”

Nora wished she could have wiped the tears away herself. That was how this should have happened. In a perfect world, the two would have already been long passed the use of words, a mess of scattered clothes and tussled hair.

Piper sniffed, surely thinking the same, sweet thoughts. “I’m sorry, Blue. I just need time.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Nora murmured as she played with Piper’s scarf. “I waited two hundred years for you. What’s a little longer?”

Another of those bubbling, choking laughs managed to free itself from Piper’s throat. “How long have you been waiting to use that?”

Nora shrugged happily. “Just came to me.” She would have given anything to put her arms around the woman she loved. “I don’t want to lose you. If that means sleeping on the couch, then I can sleep on the couch. I’ll even go back to the Dugout. It doesn’t matter to me, Piper. I just want you to be safe. And I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to be ready.”

One of Piper’s hands managed to find Nora’s side. She barely even felt it, so timid was her touch. “Okay.”

The world slowly made itself known through the quiet moment. Nora again heard guards chattering and people mulling about the market. She felt their prying eyes as intimately as she felt Piper’s.

Before she could suggest they go inside, a familiar voice shouted from the market. “Nora!”

Piper whirled. Nora stared. From across the market, a little girl in a blue coat came tearing down the street, arms wide. Piper barely had time to step out of the way before Nat slammed into Nora’s leg.

“You’re back!”

Nora stared down at the smiling little girl, looked back at Piper, and did her best not to burst into tears. “Yeah,” she managed. “I’m back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Piper, Nora, and Ann will all be back with more adventures in the next installment, but before that, I want to say thanks. As always, you’ve been an amazing audience, but a few of you have been downright unbelievable. A few of you have been leaving regular comments with words of excitement and encouragement at every chapter. A few of you have left only one or two comments, but the words you’ve written have been so kind that they have left me speechless. You know who you are, and I want you to know that this is all for you. I wouldn’t do this if you weren’t pushing me along. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. You truly are too kind.
> 
> *Ahem* So! Next installment! I have good news and bad news. Good news is that A Candle in the Dark is shaping up be, at least to my mind, the most exciting installment yet. The bad news is that it gets longer every time I try to write it. I have no idea when it will be done. Due to some real-world responsibilities, I’m hoping for about two weeks from now, but that may very easily slip.
> 
> That said, if you want your daily dose of Piper fluff before then, please don’t hesitate to message me on Tumblr. You’ll find me under the same name and I’m always happy to write more fluff. Comments and criticism are both welcomed as well, should the mood strike you, so message away if you ever feel the need.
> 
> Thank you again. You’ve been a fantastic audience. I look forward to seeing you back again for the next story.


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